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STARS

GROUND

MAN

WOMAN

MOUNTAINS

SLAVES

HEAD

MOUTH

BREAD

EATING

WATER

THE ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET I cuneiform scripts of sumerians

Our currently used alphabet is placed at the end of a long historical evolution beginning from the cu-neiform scripts of Sumerians. Their pictograms was made by inscribing wet clay with a wedge-shaped reed. Later the Akkadians adopted the cuneiform writing but reduced it to 60 symbols and used them phoneti-cally, to represent syllables.

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THE ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET II the poenician script

At the other side, the Phoenician Alphabet first appeared in the Sinai region. This alphabet pro-ved to be such an efficient system for transcribing spoken language that it spread from one culture to another, being modified each time to suit each language. The Proto-Sinaitic and Phoenician alphabets only recorded consonants, as the Semitic languages did not need to write vowels.The Phoenician character set first gave rise to other West Semitic alphabets: Hebrew, Aramaic, and later Arabic. More later, it also became the root of the Greek and Roman alphabets.

‘ (A)BGDH (E)WZH.T.YKLMNS‘ (O)P (PH)S.RK.S^T

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ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET III egyptian writing

Egyptian writing started almost at the same time and developed parallel. They developed a system of hieroglyphics, which were at first purely ideographic, as symbol representing an idea. This writing system died, because the alphabet mostly remains under the control of the priests and was not used for the comunication between people.

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ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET IV how the greeks writed

The Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet to their language. For the first time the symbols became com-pletely abstract. Before, characters were pictorial, they had evolved from a relationship between their shape and the sound of what they represented. A = alpha in Greek, does not mean anything, but the Semitic symbol “aleph” carried the meaning of “ox”.

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ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET V from the roman alphabet to the contemporary fonts

Finally, the Roman alphabet was developed by the Etruscans, bor-rowing from the Greek alphabet and changing certain shapes and sound values for writing their own language. The contemporary used alphabet in the western world didn’t reach its present form until the end of the 18th century. After the fall of the Roman empire, Eu-rope lapsed into illiteracy, and only monks in monasteries were literate. Writing became chaotic, and one monk could not read what another had written. Before the invention of the printing press, there existed many different alphabets, accor-ding to each scribe.

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THE CHINESE SCRIPT I space codes like logograms

The chinese script, also known as a Han character is a logogram used in writing Chinese, Japanese, and less frequently Korean. The number of Chinese characters is approxima-tely 47,035, although a large num-ber of these are rarely used. Full li-teracy in chinese language requires a knowledge of only between three and four thousand characters.In the chinese writing system, the cha-racters are morphosyllabic, each usually corresponding to a spoken syllable with a basic meaning.

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THE CHINESE SCRIPT II characters have origin in pictures

Chinese characters are also the world’s longest continuously used writing system. Contrary to po-pular belief, pictograms make up only a small portion of Chinese characters. While characters in this class derive from pictures, they have been standardized, simplified, and stylized to make them easier to write, and their derivation is there-fore not always obvious.

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I CHING ALPHABET chinese confucian codes

In addition to being considered the world’s first book, the I Ching is also considered to be the world’s first computer language. German philosopher G.W. Leinitz (1646-1716), the founder of symbolic logic was fascinated with the I Ching’s binary mathematical structure. The I Ching may have inspired Leib-nitz to develop the binary number system of O zeros and I ones that all modern computers are based on.

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ARABIC CALLIGRAPHY a script in evolution

While many religions and cultures have made use of figural images to convey their core convictions, Islam has instead used the shapes and sizes of words or letters. Leaders saw in figural arts a possible im-plication of idolatry, Islam’s early theocracy looked to the artistry of calligraphy for religious expres-sion. In this way, islamic scripts are used like a space alphabet, without using any images. Arabic is a script of 28 letters and uses long but not short vowels.

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ARABIC SCRIPTS space codes without images

The letters of the arabic script are derived from only 17 distinct forms, distinguished one from another by a dot or dots placed above or below the letter. Short vowels are indicated by small diagonal stro-kes above or below letters. Writ-ten from right to left, the Arabic script can be a flowing continuum of ascending verticals, descending curves, and temperate horizontals. On a traditional Islamic building, a number of different writing styles may appear on, for example, the walls, windows, or minarets. An inscription can give meaning to the building by clarifying its function. At the end, script is used to define a space.

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THE BINARY CODE a simplyfied, digital language

Binary code is the system of repre-senting text or computer processor instructions by the use of a two-di-git number system. This system is composed of only the number zero, representing the off state, and the number one, representing on state, combined in groups of 8. These groups of 8 bits can represent up to 256 different values and can correspond to a variety of different symbols, letters or instructions. For representing texts in the Latin alphabet often a fixed width 8-bit code is used. This block of 8 bits is called a byte. The Unicode standard defines several variable-width en-codings and the fixed-width 32-bit (4-byte) UTF-32 code, potentially having room for billions of cha-racters.

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SEMAPHORE ALPHABET codes made out of flags

The semaphore flag signalling system, designed by the Chappe brothers in France in the late 18th century was used to carry despa-tches between French army units. This visual based system we use today uses flags, usually square and divided diagonally into a red and a yellow section with the red in the uppermost triangle.The signaller, with arms extended, holds the flags in various positions to represent the different letters of the alphabet. There are eight positions for each flag. For six of the positions (let-ters H, I, O, W, X, Z see below) the signaller is required to hold one or other of the flags across the body so that both flags are on the same side.

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BRAILLE FONT blind people reading space code

The Braille system, devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Every Braille cha-racter or “cell” is made up of six dot positions, like in a binary space code system, arranged in a rectan-gle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form 64 combinations. To enable any script for Braille, all the characters inlcu-ding letters, numbers and symbols of the script should be mapped to these 64 cells. There is also a eight-dot Braille but it is not widely used as six-dot Braille.

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MORSE ALPHABET sound and light codes

A telegraphic alphabet in very general use, invented by Samuel F.B.Morse, the inventor of Morse’s telegraph. The letters are represen-ted by dots and dashes impressed or printed on paper, as, .- (A), - . . . (B), -.. (D), . (E), .. (O), . . . (R), -- (T), etc., or by sounds, flashes of light, etc., with greater or less intervals between them.

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MANUAL ALPHABET manual signs and codes for deaf people

The Manual Alphabet for the Deaf is used to spell out names and places for which there are no signs. Most words are not spelled out, however, but are communicated with a sign that represents the whole word or idea. Sign Languages have many advantages. In certain codes you can talk to any other insider person without an outsider knowing or un-derstanding. It makes conversation easy in places when you must not speak aloud, as in school, during music, or by the bedside of the sick. It is universal. It deals not with wor-ds but with ideas that are common to all mankind.

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FLAG ALPHABET codes trought maritime flag signals

The flags in the image on the right are international signals used by ships at sea. They can be used to spellout short messages, or more commonly, used individually or in combination they have special meanings. Strung end to end and hung bow to stern from the rigging they are used to dress the ship for ceremonmial and festive occasions.

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SEMAPHORE ALPHABET new original applications

Semaclock is an Internet device for people with deipnophobia or other social anxiety disorders. Plugged into a home, hanging on a visible wall, Semaclock connects to the Internet to retrieve news and topics of interest from one of the thousands of freely-available RSS feeds, and then displays them using the semaphore alphabet. Seating your guests with their backs to the Semaclock allows you to easily read the incoming items of interest without them noticing. The device on display here shows the three most recent headlines from the BBC Entertainment News website, although this can easily be changed by the device’s owner to suit perso-nal preferences.

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RAKETENTIM a font is just a 3d code

The font designer Markus Schaefer, from raketentim, a design-office operating in Berlin, designed a group of 3d fonts ( see below a font created with the different positions of a tool-knife) based on real objects (even furniture) and their shapes corresponding to the 26 letters of the current phonetic alphabet.

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ALIGHIERO BOETTI codes, ciphers and letters

In 1970, Alighiero sprayed a cast iron relief with green paint. It con-sisted of seven times seven square fields of letters. In Italian, the year 1970, millenovecentosettanta, what means “thousendninehun-dredseventy”, was spelled out in horizontal and vertical rows that could be read from left to right. The transcription of numbers into letters is the encoding of a simple information. This creation, to-gether with a knitted work wich was completed shortly before, exempli-fy another basic concept found in Boetti’s work.

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ALIGHIERO BOETTI killing time describing letters

A is a nice, architectonic, male letter. B, by contrast, has female curves on a spine. C is the wing pa-lace. D is a sail. E is not a letter but a conjunction. F is the renuncation exacted from E for it to become a letter. G is a spiral letter. H is the bridge. I is the bridge’s support. J is a young lad (boy). KLM is an airli-ne. MN are a couple. O is the mouth that forms it. P is a flag. Q is dou-bled in wild disorder. R is a walking letter. S the meanders and T the roof. UVX and Y strive towards Z. (Alighiero e Boetti, insicuro non-curante)

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ED RUSCHA the alphabet in 26 gasoline stations

In a significant artwork of the american artist Ed Ruscha suggests the 26 letters of the alphabet. In his work twentysix gasoline stations he composes an alphabet book, in-deed. Yet, if one plots all twenty-six gas stations sequentially from A to Z along a mapo of the route 66 from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City , one finds that in the book this alphabet becomes jumbled. The sequence og images reads instead: A B E C D I G H J K L F M N O R Q S T U R X Y Z V. It is easy to guess why the twenty-se-cond gas station has been placed at the end, even though it is in Texas. Artist’s freedom anyway.

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ED RUSCHA fascination of letters in the urban landscape

Ed Ruscha’s work is reflecting a deep interest in the details of the urban landscape, like commercial scripts on walls, billboards, adver-tising and the shape of commercial buildings, as we could see in his im-portant work of the 26 gas stations.It is an original way to follow the mainstream of his jounger period of works, influenced by the pop-art.

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FACE ALPHABET letters made from portraits

In an art-exposition at the Palais de Tokyo in the city of Paris (2005 )the french graphic-design team M/M shows a new work: an original al-phabet based on b/w photographs of human faces (portraits). Here the phrase: these are the astronau-ts.

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LISA RIENERMANN writing with buildings and the sky

In this project-work for a semester on the university of Duisburg-Essen(Germany) the student Lisa Rie-nermann presented a new alpha-bet using photographs taken by exploring the urban landscape of Barcelona. The particular shapes of courtyards, street crossings etc. are used in a sight from bottom to the top, looking to the clear dividing lines between the facades and the blue sky.

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WIM CROUWEL new tools, new letters

In the early 1964, at the first begin-ning of computer-based working on monitors, the dutch graphic-designer Crouwel launched a new alphabet wich proposed new letter-forms suitable for reproduction by a type composition system using a cathodic-ray tube.

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FRANK O. GEHRY giant letters forming a facade

The garage of Santa Monica Place uses a metal mesh screen to turn the surface of the building into a billboard at the scale of the city, screening the parking structure with lrge-scale lettering that signi-fies the name and presence of the shopping mall in an urban context. The shadows of the south facing screen move across the floors of the garage over the course of the day, producing an effect deeper then the thin surface of the facade.

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MAURIZIO NANNUCCI colors, light and letters

For his neon-light-lettering works Nannucci uses an alphabet based on his handwrited poetic scripts. As capital letters (more then meets the eye - right) ore as more hand-written italic type (deepblue - top) wich is signalising subjectivity and individuality.

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FREDERICK BOULY BOULABRÈ an alphabet on 448 cards

Frédérick Bouly Bouabré, an artist native from the african Ivory Coast, invented an alphabet of 448 mo-nosyllabic pictograms to represent phonetic syllables. This endeavor earned Bouabré the legendary reputation of being another Cham-pollion, in reference to the great scholar and linguist Jean-Paul Champollion (1790-1832), who di-scovered the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bouabré’s alphabet, which can transcribe all human sounds, reflects the essence of his thought: to achieve universa-lity and to unite mankind.

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MATT MULLICAN objects, codes, signs and symbols

The artist uses five basic symbols on flags to describe five different worlds : elements, world unframed, world framed, subjective, and sign, bringing together a whole system trought an artistic view of the pla-net earth in his different aspects, using a real synthetic sign-language to comunicate it. Like a shaman of the contemporary world, Mullican creates an alphabet to write and speak about his point of view on the human being in our days.

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FONTS IN THE 3TH DIMENSION works of graphic designers

On the right above an alphabet of the swiss design group leaded by Martin Woodt made by the dif-ferent surface-views in the 3 axo-nometric axes using a simplyfied version of letters. The german group Augenbluten created the logo (right, middle) using the axo-nometric rendering of a cube orga-nising the letter-lines on his three visible faces. Below left the font of a polish designer, Lukaks Samiez, using a aluminium stripes to com-pose the different letters. Below right, at least, a work of buffet fuer gestaltung, working on letters to transform in furniture.

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SPACE LETTERS axonometry and perspective

Julie Gayard with the graphic-design team named jutojo from Germany developes in a deeper way all the aspects of axonometry and perspective in representing the letters in the space. Aspekte (based on the axonomtry) and Jazzanova (a sophisticated use of the pres-pective) are the more significative examples of this works, including a complete corporate identity of the clients.